It's all about execution...

Whether it’s a class on strategy, management, or even global trade, the phrase “it’s all about execution” is an often spoken phrase in the HBS classroom. The basic concept is simple enough to understand; one can have a great plan or idea, but unless it’s implemented properly, it won’t lead to the desired results.

Coming from the military, it was intuitively difficult for me to understand why this was such a common place problem in the business world. This is partly because execution is something that most military officers know how to do quite well. It is such a commonplace skill, that I never saw it as a skill. While I certainly understood the theoretical challenges that businesses faced when executing a plan, I admit that for a while I didn’t understand the fundamental nature of the problem.

Let's say that a company has a challenge it wants to overcome. Perhaps they need to fix an internal problem, or perhaps they want to take action to reach a new goal. Execution might simply mean that the organization puts into action what they already know they need to do, and one might think that putting the plan into action shouldn’t necessarily be the most difficult part of the whole operation. In trying to understand the fundamentals of this problem, I thought of an analogy that made the human nature component extremely simple to understand: think about the process of getting into shape and losing weight.

A person may realize that they are not living a healthy lifestyle. They’ve gained weight and aren’t happy with their situation. That person makes a strategic decision to get in shape. They then may hire personal consultants and seek out advisors on how to do this. These personal fitness consultants will come in, analyze the client’s challenges and goals, and prescribe an operational plan to reach the desired goals. So it turns out that coming up with the strategy and operational plans was actually the easy part. More often than not, like losing weight, business problems are not entirely original, and coming up with the theoretical solution is not necessarily the hard part.

The person now knows where he wants to be, and knows how to get there. But for most people, the act of going to the gym, of changing their diet, and of sticking to a plan, is simply beyond many people's ability to sustain. Some people fail to execute the plan despite desperately wanting to get in shape, and companies are no different, because companies after all, are made up of people who also suffer from the same challenges. Knowing what to do is often the easy part, doing it is the hard part. We see this in every aspect of our lives. A company may change the language of their sales policy or put up different mottos in the same way a person may get subscriptions to health magazines and put up motivational posters, but changing the language of a company’s strategy won’t lead to execution success anymore than having a fitness magazine on the coffee table will lead to losing weight. It’s all about execution.

In my view, execution comes from discipline. I define discipline as doing what you know you need to do, when you need to do it, irrelevant of any external distractions, excuses, or obstacles. The ability to do this was a foregone conclusion in my previous unit; I never realized what an edge it could give to military people in the business world.

Execution is often much more difficult than strategic thinking or operational planning. A former military person that has the discipline to execute, the leadership skills to lead and motivate, and the vision to think strategically, can truly be a business force to be reckoned with. I have met quite a few highly impressive people at HBS who fall in this category. Discipline and execution can be your personal edge as well... it's a more uncommon skills than one may think.